LOS ANGELES — Seven plays, 75 yards, five of them on the ground at the goal line. Jeremiyah Love’s first career NFL touchdown, scored on Arizona’s opening possession of the 2026 season, came before most of the 70,000 fans at SoFi Stadium had settled on an explanation for how a 9½-point favorite was already falling behind.
They never recovered.
The Arizona Cardinals defeated the Los Angeles Chargers 26–14 on Sunday in the NFL’s biggest Week 1 upset since 2018. The loss ended Jim Harbaugh’s perfect 6–0 record in season openers and gave first-year head coach Mike LaFleur the kind of start that can validate a hiring decision before Week 2 has a chance to complicate the story.
The numbers that define what happened are in the possession columns, not the box score. Arizona ran 72 offensive plays. The Chargers ran 51. The Cardinals held the ball for 37 minutes; Los Angeles held it for 22. Arizona produced 393 yards; the Chargers produced 268. By any measure of territorial control, the Cardinals dominated the proceedings at a stadium where they had not won since 2001.
Jacoby Brissett, starting at quarterback for a team that did not enter the year on any national radar as a playoff contender, completed 27 of 37 passes for 277 yards, one touchdown, and zero interceptions. Tight end Trey McBride caught nine passes for 95 yards and converted a short-field opportunity into six points after Arizona blocked a Chargers punt and recovered it at the three-yard line. Chad Ryland connected on four field goals. Rookie Jeremiyah Love, a preseason injury concern who had been cleared to play just days before the game, finished with 41 rushing yards and a touchdown; Tyler Allgeier added 61 more.
LaFleur, who spent the past three seasons as Sean McVay’s offensive coordinator with the Los Angeles Rams (where the 2025 Rams offense led the NFL in points per game at 30.5), became the first Cardinals head coach to win his debut since Don Coryell did it in 1973, as Yahoo Sports reported. His brother Matt, the Green Bay Packers head coach, surprised Mike on NBC before kickoff. His postgame framing was measured: “Like I just told them, humility is a day away in this league.”
For the Chargers, Justin Herbert completed 17 of 27 passes for 209 yards with one touchdown, one interception, and was sacked three times. Wide receiver Ladd McConkey caught five passes for 82 yards and a touchdown before leaving with a chest injury midway through the third quarter. Losing McConkey clarified what the scoreboard had already reported: the Chargers had no path back through the passing game, and their defense was giving them nothing to work with.
Marvin Harrison Jr. made a 33-yard reception in the second quarter on an over-the-shoulder catch at full extension that required something the box score cannot record. He did not define this game. Brissett and McBride did, and Bleacher Report’s full box-score rundown confirmed what the possession numbers already established: Arizona produced in every phase when it was required to.
In a Week 1 that also saw the Chicago Bears shatter the NFL’s all-time season-opener scoring record with a 59-37 win over Carolina and the Houston Texans set a franchise sack record against the Bills, the Cardinals’ win at SoFi was less explosive and more structurally complete than either. The Bears scored more. The Texans were more disruptive. Arizona spent three hours controlling a better-resourced team in its own building.
What the LaFleur system can sustain against better defenses is the question Sunday does not answer. Harbaugh’s Chargers will be healthier in October, McConkey will return, and the offensive line will have several weeks of film to reconsider. The 26-14 final tells you who won. It does not confirm whether that gap is real or whether the afternoon was a condition of what the Chargers were not, rather than proof of what Arizona is.
LaFleur will ask his team to watch the film Monday morning, find what they did not execute, and not let Sunday become the story they are still telling in December.
